Excitement builds as town awaits new church and community facility

Excitement in the community is building as construction of the new Maybole Parish Church and Carrick Centre progresses on a site located in the heart of Maybole, Ayrshire.

The project will create new community facilities and will incorporate a modern church,with a separate dedicated youth facility.

The scheme is being carried out for the Church of Scotland by Main Contractors Fleming Building; Architects are ARP Lorimer and Associates.

The brief to the architects asked for a flexible multi use building that will provide comfortable modern facilities for the activities of the church and local residents. A range of spaces will be provided from a large hall down to small private meeting rooms. Local interest will be supported by the presence of the Maybole Historical Society and a Drop-in cafe for all.

A substantial car park will serve the new building, as well as the local health centre, railway station and the town centre as a much needed resource for Maybole.

Within the building the smaller spaces are arranged along the Culzean Road frontage providing a lively façade to the street, with the more internal spaces of the large hall and worship space being positioned towards the railway.

All the spaces are accessed from welcoming entry courts that lead into a well lit central gathering place. The range of spaces and flexible furnishing arrangements allows a wide variety of functions to be accommodated from private meetings to conference and cinema functions. The design of the building allows this wide variety of activities to take place alongside the worship requirements of the parish.

The building will provide a centre of great presence in the town, a modern landmark building for the future.

Just as the originally planned project was being completed in July last year, it was discovered that the steel beams supporting the church tower were completely corroded through, which necessitated replacing the beams with reinforced concrete beams. This was a difficult job and required shoring up the tower, removing the ceiling and floor and digging down into bedrock to form a new concrete base for the beams, with all of the excavation having to be carried out by hand.

The cost of the project was partly funded by grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Scotland and the National Churches Trust.

Other grants came from the Scottish Episcopal Church; the Scottish Churches Heritage Trust; the All Churches Trust; the Garfield Western Foundation; the Shetland Churches Council Trust; Shetland Islands Council; Shetland Amenity Trust, and the National Churches Trust Ltd.